MILWAUKEE -- Spring training is a long slog.
Oh, certainly it is not as long as baseball famously marathon-like season, but at least the 162 from April-September (give or take a few days on each end) count in the standings.
Spring training is a convenient excuse for fans to escape Wisconsin’s all-too-long winter and for ballplayers to play two innings, run in the outfield during games, and then go play golf.
But after a few weeks, even playing in the Arizona sun gets old.
So, Thursday begins anew. The Brewers, for the first time since 2018 are not coming off a season in where they played postseason baseball. But also, like 2017, they just barely missed by the slimmest of margins.
As manager Craig Counsell pointed out to reporters Wednesday at American Family Field during a media availability on the eve of the team’s season opener, the Brewers are “dependent on the health of our starting pitchers. When some of your best players are starting pitchers, you can’t bridge that gap” if one or more is unavailable.
Fortunately, Milwaukee’s top three hurlers, Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, and Freddy Peralta are all healthy to start the season, but fellow righthander Adrian Houser will begin the year on the injured list.
“I think we’re looking at probably in the three weeks-ish range,” Counsell said, while clarifying the timetable is a return to Major League action, not any potential rehab starts.
One other major topic was discussed on Wednesday; MLB’s new rules designed to speed up games while stimulating offense.
“The rules changes have been very pleasant, very good for everybody," Counsell added. "I think everybody has liked them. It has improved the pace of the game, and I think fans will very much notice it. Now I think we are entering another phase of learning this first week of the season, of games where it matters who wins or loses, right? We’ll see, there’s going to be issues. But overall this is a transition that the game needed to make."